So, which would be the final actions to take?
So far, I too have noticed that, as I ticked the memory box, it went down from 6,97 GB to 5 GB, and so on. Only when I UNTICKED the memo. box, the amount raised again.
But what about the processors box? Why should THAT be unticked aswell? By ticking it, and selecting the no. of processors, don't we actually tell the OS to use both cores?!
Thanks!

Yes the processor box is used to define the no of cores to be used by the operating system. Ideally all the cores should be used by the operating system. You can disable individual cores while running some applications if you are facing some problems while using the application.

Hello everyone
I’ve been reading this tread, along with others just like it, and discovered I have the same problem. I recently upgraded an XP machine with to Windows 7, half the physical RAM is "Hardware Reserved". The system runs good, better then XP did on it. I plan on adding more RAM but before I do, I would like to understand what is happening in the system.
• The motherboard is an AOpen MK-89L with the NVIDIA nForce chipset.
• The system is an AMD Athlon 64 2800+, it is a 64bit system running 32bit Win7 (and the 32bit XP before it). Could it be related to that? I don’t think so but possible.
• I upgraded the video card to an NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT/512MB AGP card.
• 1GB (one stick, DDR) of RAM. It shows the 1GB installed but then shows (512 usable).
• I've upgraded the BIOS to the latest from AOpen.
• The system has an onboard sound chip, but Win7 didn't recognize it at all so I disabled the onboard chip in the BIOS and then added a Creative Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum.
• The AGP Aperture setting in the BIOS was 64MB, I reset it for 512, tested it to see what happened, it just seemed to slowed the system down. Changed it to 32MB and it seems about the same as the 64MB setting.
• I tried the msconfig.exe/max mem fix, neither of the settings were checked, so that was a no go.
• I’m looking into GART and the AGP3.5 driver, maybe there is an answer there.
I’ve researched all the settings in my BIOS (boy wasn’t that fun) but can’t seem to find anything about memory mapping.
Why is it holding 512mb in reserve? What and where is the setting for it? Is it just a function of being an older mobo, and there is no way to adjust the mapping? Is it a bug, and will eventually get fixed?

You need not specify the and set the speed of the RAM that you have installed recently, and what you just added right now,and it matches or not.The First thing to do is get the RAM, etc.You can test the RAM with the below mentioned link.

Hello there, I suppose that this particular problem, that all the RAM is not used is some issue with the Windows 7 operating system itself. Many of the other users too are facing such an issue, but a perfect solution has not been suggested till now.

I think there are two different manifestations of this issue.
One it takes exactly half of the physical RAM and it becomes "Hardware Reserved" I have not heard of a solution for that scenario.
The second is where it takes a large chunk of the RAM, 1/4 or something similar, but not half. This seems to be able to be fixed by running msconfig.exe, going to the Boot tab, clicking on Advanced options and making sure that both the "Number of Processors" and "Maximum memory" are unchecked. On my system those were unchecked.

Hi there.
I never got any further into solving this issue so I'm not sure I'll be a big help.
As I said in my post above, I think there are two different causes for this issue, one basically is an older MB. This is the issue on my system.
The other cause/issue is the setting in the boot tab.
Run msconfig.exe, go to the Boot tab, click on Advanced options and make sure that both the "Number of Processors" and "Maximum memory" are unchecked.
Try this as a starting point and see where it gets you.
Let us know what happens, if it's not the answerwe can look at a couple of other settings.

I personally had a 32bit install windows 7 on my PC and I only have 2GB of RAM so I know how these ideas are based. Later on I tried to add more ram on Windows 7 so that it must work better. Unfortunately no, Windows 7 32bit does not support more than 3GB of RAM. Although there is a trick to be able to go up to 4GB in 32bit. But that is quiet a messy.

Hello,The memory fix you suggested seem to work,,BUT the box to check for your processes I checked and went from 1 to 4 and restarted computer,,My computer crashed so BAD,,fOR 2 DAYS,, I thought I was going to have to Reload Windows 7 64 bit..NOT GOOD !!,,Windows COULD NOT fix the problem,,nor could Microsoft, even system recovery did not help,even booting from Windows 7 disc did not help, finally (with a lot of Prayer ) I was able to start in Safe Mode and uncheck now everything is Fine ..Thank The Lord for answered prayers ....I advise that anyone that uses this fix BE VERY VERY CAREFULL !!!!!!